9 comments:

Marja
said...

Firehand, would you happen to know any net site where I could find reliable numbers about things like gun violence, violence in general and how the development of gun laws seem to relate to those numbers, in your country, in one place? And maybe similar numbers for Great Britain...

Ran into a Finnish net debate with plenty of comments praising the Great Britain model, and talking about the exploding gun violence in the poor USA where the idiots don't know what would be best for everybody. Again. We have plenty of gun enthusiasts here, but we also have way too many hoplophobes, and the hoplophobes seem to be currently winning. I guess the best way to argue with them would be to present numbers, even if I doubt that would change any of their minds with luck it might catch a fence sitter or two and push them on the right side of the fence. I haven't taken part in these discussions much, so far, but maybe I should at least try.

John lott and gary mauser are pretty good; John Lott is usually good at linking to research papers and critiques of research. The links are in the right hand side bar

take a look at Gary Mauser's publications here:http://www.garymauser.net/papers.html

the third one down is good, but a little dated. Check out homicide figures especially for Finland's eastern neighbours

Colin Greenwood was for many years the leading british researcher. He was a retired police superintendent, and up until 1997, edited the magazine "guns review".

Prior to the '1997 general election, Tory politician, Michael Hestletine bought the magazine's publisher, retired Greenwood and then closed the magazine. Greenwood was still active, but must be getting very elderly now.

there weas also a very good site called gunbancon.com, I've not seen it for a few years, but it did link to some of greenwood's work on the history of British laws. and the care which was taken to avoid the question of:

Do these laws actually do any good?

ever being asked. The question was always "how can we make these laws better"

Jan Stevenson was another British researcher, he edited "Handgunner" magazine, which was taken down for a long period by the British Government, for having dared to publish an article about the shortcomings of Britain's terrible service rifle.

This is currently the most active British lobbying group:http://www.basc.org.uk/

Their head of Firearms is Bill Harriman, and their guy in Scotland is Colin Sheddon. Both are approachable, helpful and knowledgeable.

International figures are notoriously difficult to compare, with some homicide figures requiring an inquest to make that finding, others only require a police suspicion that that may have been the cause.

Whatever else happened, the number of deaths by shooting and the homicide rate in britain has more than doubled since the handgun ban.

Drug smugglers have been caught with consignments weighing over 1 tonne - which suggests that smuggling consignments of anything else that size is possible to, so bans are not going to keep guns out,

Finland has a long and remote coast and long and remote frontiers, so smuggling would be relatively easy.

Guns are also much more durable than drugs - drugs are used up quickly, a well oiled gun lasts for decades or centuries.

I had a quick look at the BASC site. It looks very "prag" in the derogatory sense.

Back in 1987, after Britain's first mass public shooting (michael Ryan, in Hungerford, with an ak). The British NRA was happy to screw over owners of semi auto rifles, feeding them to the leviathan, in the hope of gaining influence as the future sole representative.

BASC was active in defence of pistol shooters in 96 and 97, however, its prag policy is one of negotiating away rights,

it has conceded the existence of gun laws and registration.

it is therefore at best a slight brake on the slippery slope to a total ban on everything but the leadership's pheasant shooting, and will likely defend each and every new infringement as being necessary.

ps, wasn't the Finnish Government secretly manufacturing mosin nagent rifles in the late 40s through to the 80s?

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"He's Black Council,", I said.

"Or maybe stupid," Ebenezar countered.

I thought about it. "Not sure which is scarier."

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